Director: Meera Menon

Writers: Freddy Syborn, A. C. Bradley, and Matthew Chauncey

Starring: Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Laurel Marsden, Azhar Usman

Rating: ★★★★

In episode three of Ms. Marvel, Kamala (Iman Vellani) continues getting to know her newly discovered powers, while also going about her day-to-day life. There’s a really good amount of time spent developing her family, and not everything is focused on her powers. It’s refreshing to see and so far the show has managed to do a really good job at balancing her home life and the superhero story.

Most of this episode is focused on Kamala’s brother, Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) getting married, with the massive celebration that’s interrupted, and forces Kamala to act to save her family. It’s clearly being set up that Kamala is going to have to make a choice between her family and her powers, and that she won’t be able to keep the two sides of her life in harmony forever. There’s a mystery from her family’s past that is slowly being unravelled and you know it’s going to cause a lot of tension when the big reveal is finally made.

This episode also marks the first time that we really get to see Kamala use her powers in combat and it’s one of the best moments of the show so far. The choreography is electric, and there’s so much energy throughout. The best thing about Ms. Marvel is how so much of it is presented in a quirky and off-beat fashion, and that carried over to the fight in the best way possible.  

Towards the end of the episode there’s a scene where Kamala lies to her parents about what’s happening to her and while it’s a brief moment where the standard superhero formula starts to show. Every superhero show has this moment, especially the coming-of-age ones, like Smallville and Arrow. At this point, for anyone who’s watched a lot of the genre has seen this too many times. It creates division, jealousy, and is really played out. While it’s an inevitable plot point, hopefully the show can steer away from the cliches and do something new.

As the third episode ends and we are now at the halfway point, it finally feels like the overarching story is taking hold. We know who the villains are and Kamala is starting to really discover her powers. There’s a lot of mystery in the show, and hopefully the rest of the series continues to be this good.

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